The War on Yemen and the Noxious U.S.-Saudi Relationship

Cassady Rosenblum urges the Senate to adopt the House amendments that would restrict U.S. involvement in the war on Yemen:

The Senate should embrace these amendments, but lawmakers also need to start asking themselves harder questions about whom the U.S. chooses to befriend in the Middle East and why. Any country that intentionally or recklessly attacks a boat carrying unarmed refugees to safer shores is not an ally that shares our values.

Rosenblum is referring here to the slaughter of Somali refugees at sea that occurred back in March. The U.N. recently reported on the results of their investigation into the attack, and they confirmed that the Saudi-led coalition was responsible. This was already clear at the time, and the government of Somalia said as much back then. The attack on the refugee ship was one of the coalition’s most egregious violations of international law, but as anyone following events in Yemen know it is one in a series of deliberate attacks on civilian targets.

It is certainly true that the Saudi-led coalition does not include allies that share our values, and that was true even before their forces murdered these poor refugees. In fact, none of the governments wrecking and starving Yemen can be called real U.S. allies in any sense. None is a formal treaty ally, the U.S. has no obligations to defend any of them, and their interests also increasingly diverge from ours. The U.S. has often justified working with despicable regimes in the past because it supposedly serves some larger strategic purpose, but in this case the U.S. has supported the Saudis and their allies for the last two and a half years in Yemen out of little more than unthinking habit. There is no good reason for it, and the excuses that have been offered in defense of this policy (“reassurance,” weapons sales, etc.) are pathetically weak.

The U.S.-Saudi relationship is noxious and destructive, and the war on Yemen has made that clear to a growing number of Americans. Let’s hope that more members of the Senate have begun to realize that as well.

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6 Responses to The War on Yemen and the Noxious U.S.-Saudi Relationship

GOP Congressmen: take heed – there are American conservatives out here in the real America who want you to STOP our government from killing innocent civilians and creating new terrorists.

STOP our government from helping the Saudis destroy Yemen. STOP our government from helping Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Tell President Trump to STOP this stupid, self-destructive Obama-era policy!

Quite a few Congresspeople have turned against the war, though not enough. The crucial factor missing is public attention. The NYT, for instance, has written truthful articles and editorials condemning our involvement, but they are sporadic and the impression given is that they just don’t think it is that important. Russiagate gets, I am guessing, 100 times the attention. I think the mainstream press doesn’t want to ask why the Saudis have so much influence.

I hope you understand it is all about the money. The military industrial complex and the people they fund salivate at the prospect of the biggest IPO in the history of the world and look the other way. I just guess that they know the risks on both side will come back and bite us hard. Risks in the carrots Saudis are hanging out to us and risks in the things we are overlooking. History will not be kind to us.

Daniel, can you comment as to whether the whole relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab states continues because of the trade deal to sell oil in American dollars? I’m ignorant on the subject’s details, but it seems to me the reason we used to cater to Saudi Arabia’s whims is because if oil was not pegged to the dollar, the US economy and world clout would suffer enormous damage. Essentially, a deal with the devil that amounts to blackmail. If we don’t do what they want, they stop using the dollar and the whole international order goes to pieces. Can you elucidate on this topic? I’ve been wanting to be more informed on it for a while, to see whether I’m right on this, or inaccurate.

Saudi Arabia has overstated its oil reserves as matter of course for the last decades. The reality is their largest oil fields are being depleted – this is serious issue for a one trick economy. But their smaller southern neighbor has untapped large reserves of oil and natural gas, off the coast of Aden. It’s a resource war – Saudi’s want to re-install their proxy in Yemeni government and access the reserves in future.